Priya Lakhi is the Founder of Awaken Ananda, and she specializes in supporting women to integrate their intuition with their intelligence. After 18 years as a criminal defense lawyer, Priya went through a period of utter emptiness, disconnection and depression. Though on the outside she seemed to be the embodiment of the proverbial 'American Dream', she no longer felt contented in her life. A trip to India and a visit with her maternal aunt and other female spiritual teachers were the catalysts for a complete shift in her life. Working deeply on her unconscious patterns, she awakened to her ultimate purpose and her life completely transformed. It is now Priya's mission to help others transcend to their own rebirth process. Priya is passionate about guiding others to harness the power within to create potent and powerful lives. Priya is a master results coach, a board certified trainer in hypnotherapy and neuro linguistic programming. And she has spent years studying ancient spiritual wisdom in the quantum field. With the clarity of a lawyer and the compassion of a healer, Priya is a living bridge between science and spirit and she's on a mission to empower women with fierce grace to actualize their highest potential. Priya has worked with thousands of clients and is deeply committed to serving humanity and helping the awakening of consciousness.
https://www.awakenananda.com/
Free Session....Awaken My Purpose
Soniya Gokhale, Host (00:05):
Welcome back to another episode of A Desi Woman Podcast. I am your host, Soniya Gokhale. And the voices I am seeking may have never been heard before, but their stories deserve to be told. What is a Desi woman? She's a dynamic, fearless and strong woman. She's your mother, your grandmother, your daughter, your sister. She is every one of us who is on an endless pursuit of self-empowerment and fulfillment. I am Soniya Gokhale, and I am a Desi woman.
Soniya Gokhale, Host (00:40):
Hello and welcome to another edition of A Desi Woman Podcast. I am your host, Soniya Gokhale. And today we are so excited to be joined by Priya Lakhi. Priya is the Founder of Awaken Ananda, and she specializes in supporting women to integrate their intuition with their intelligence. After 18 years as a criminal defense lawyer, Priya went to an utter emptiness, disconnection and depression, as she boldly experienced this "dark night of the soul". Working deeply on her unconscious patterns, she awakened to her ultimate purpose and her life completely transformed. It is now Priya's mission to help others transcend to their own rebirth process. Priya is passionate about guiding others to harness the power within to create potent and powerful lives.
Soniya Gokhale, Host (01:46):
Priya is a master results coach, a board certified trainer in hypnotherapy and neuro linguistic programming. And she has spent years studying ancient spiritual wisdom in the quantum field. With the clarity of a lawyer and the compassion of a healer, Priya is a living bridge between science and spirit and she's on a mission to empower women with fierce grace to actualize their highest potential. Priya has worked with thousands of clients and is deeply committed to serving humanity and helping the awakening of consciousness. Priya, welcome to the show.
Priya Lakhi (02:29):
I'm excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Soniya Gokhale, Host (02:32):
Of course. And Priya, on your website, you mention that the years you expanded as a young scholar served to spark an interest in you about human conditioning, and an acute focus on some very fundamental and existential questions such as, why are we here? And what does it mean? Who am I? And interestingly, while you studied psychology, you also ended up pursuing your law degree. And as your website indicates, this stemmed from your wish to defend those who seemingly had never had a fair shot at life. Also, as you poignantly mentioned, while becoming a death row defense attorney, it permitted you to see pain and suffering. And it also opened your eyes to the concepts of hope and redemption. And so I wanted to know if you could tell me more about how the rapport and energetic connections that you developed with your clients sort of served as a gateway to the work that you do now with clients?
Priya Lakhi (03:39):
I think, for me, I have always been someone that has been deeply compassionate. And as a child, sometimes that was labeled as overly sensitive. But it was very hard for me even as a child to watch a sad movie, or I would cry at commercials, or I would, I would just feel in my heart, what felt like the pain and suffering of the world. And I think I had the contrast because I came from a fairly privileged Indian American background. While my parents absolutely struggled as immigrants in a new country, I never felt like they lacked left for anything. And so I was in this constant state of questioning like, "Well, why do I have this house and that person doesn't? Why do I have the food on the table and that person is homeless on the street?" And I couldn't get anyone to really help me understand why as a child the world seems so, I think, unfair at the point where I was at.
Priya Lakhi (04:56):
And so I started... Even as a child I remember asking myself or my parents these questions like, "Why is the world the way it is? Why are there kids in Africa suffering when there seems to be so much food in the world?" And so I've started to pursue philosophical books and trying to understand God and trying to understand just the ways of the world. And then somewhere along the way, I got distracted right by my own evolution in high school and college. And at some point, I had to decide was I going to go to, you know, business school, medical school, (laughs) engineering school, or lawyers, right? As you know, most Indian families have this pressure, right? That they put on their kids. And so I decided I wanted to go to law school.
Priya Lakhi (05:50):
And back in law school, after doing an undergraduate major in psychology and sociology, it became very clear to me that those same questions were coming to a head. Why is it that the justice system seems unfair? Why is it that poor people can't get the same representation as rich people? Why is it that, you know, if you don't come from... Uh, most of my clients, even in law school, I did a lot of this work as an internship. I noticed all of my clients either struggled with, you know, not having enough food or not having caregivers or parents that came from the foster care system. And I thought, "Well, no wonder my clients are ending up as potential criminal activities because there's no hope and love in their life."
Priya Lakhi (06:46):
And so law allowed me now the opportunity to do something on behalf of those questions. I could have gone to law school and gone into contracts or civil liberties or something other than criminal defense, but I was airy pulled with that same compassion I has, had as a child to work with individuals that really felt like they had no one else on their behalf. And that really allowed me to blossom as a human. So I'm not sure if that answers your question, but it really comes from a deep place of compassion and empathy and the recognition that if it were not for my family and my support system, I could very well have been on the streets without money, without food, without a place to call home. I think there's a very, very thin line between my criminal defense clients and myself. And at some point, I had to... It was not okay for me just to live in that privilege. I really wanted to do something to help others feel like they had a support system.
Soniya Gokhale, Host (07:49):
No, I think it's an incredibly profound and it sort of I often mention this in- in a variety of interviews that we... our community often is immersed in the model minority math, and as you indicate, yes, engineering, medicine, law. What- what are you gonna pursue? And what's interesting is that you did pursue law, but it's a juxtaposition with how you grew up, and- and as you started, some of the privilege that often our community enjoyed, and then were exposed to those that didn't have that background. So I think it's incredibly amazing and beautiful. And what I love is we often do see this in our communities that we're often sort of motivated to give back and transform. And as we pursue this interview, it's quite clear that's what you've chosen to do. Is use your life in that regard.
Soniya Gokhale, Host (08:43):
And, you know, I wanted to quote a passage, an excerpt from your site, which resonated with me, and I'm sure it will with many listeners around the world. You state, "Every life has turning points. As I soared past each societal milestone, I was confused by the emptiness I felt inside. No matter how successful I was on the outside, I felt caged in. Unfulfilled. I even started to question what's the purpose of life? It was in this heaviness that I found my answer. A whisper to visit the motherland, India, to break the compounding darkness within me and give light to my role as a healing facilitator, and spiritual teacher. Mother India brought me to my knees."
Soniya Gokhale, Host (09:35):
And that quote is just absolutely amazing. And I want to hear more from you about that time in your life. Well, I'm sure many people find themselves, I think so often in life, but especially as an Indian American woman or those of us from South Asia. We grow up believing that if we gain a certain amount of external success, whatever you grew up believing that to be, it could be a job, grab school, a certain net worth, et cetera, we all thought that would naturally lead to feelings of inner fulfillment, wholeness and satisfaction of life. And yet as you felt, and I think many people feel, a sense of sort of being left on or non-disappointment, when there's still some emptiness.
Soniya Gokhale, Host (10:19):
And so I would love to hear more about your journey, and especially your trip to India, the motherland.
Priya Lakhi (10:26):
Hmm. Yeah, it was really quite a turning point in my life. You know, if I could wrap up the lesson in one sentence, before I start telling you how it worked for me, it was, you will never find on the outside the happiness that you'll find if you're willing to go inside. And I think for a lot of us, including myself, we were raised and taught that success comes from achievement, success and happiness comes from things outside of you. But what we are yearning for in a real sense of happiness and joy and co- contentment will never be met by a job, or a spouse, or our children, or anything outside of us. And that was my most profound learning on my healing journey through India. And so you- I was absolutely, by all accounts successful on the outside. I was a lawyer. I was in a partnership with a, with a loving and caring man. I was living, you know, in a beautiful condo in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States. I had, you know, enough money in the bank to travel, eat good restaurants. I had a friend circle. And yet something was not feeling complete.
Priya Lakhi (11:57):
I felt like I was living my life on autopilot. Same thing day in day out, coloring inside the lines of this life. And I found myself just going deeper and deeper into unhappiness and a sad state of depression. And what was most confusing to me was that when I started talking to my family and friends about what I was experiencing, everyone thought I was crazy because they said, "Well, you have the perfect life. You have, you have the job, the husband, the partner, the things. You have everything that you need. So why are you unhappy?"
Priya Lakhi (12:40):
And so then I started getting confused (laughs) within myself, "Well, why am I unhappy if I have all the things that everyone said should make me happy?" So I started ignoring the feelings really, because I thought maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was asking for too much out of the world. Maybe I was being more demanding of the universe than I should be because I should just be happy with what I have. And yet that annoying feeling didn't go away until a point where my job was no longer fulfilling, the partnership I was in was no longer fulfilling, my friends circle was no longer fulfilling. I didn't wanna get out of bed and I was in a real existential crisis. And I now know that there's a name for this and I didn't know at the time. Because I went to therapy and the therapist just said, "Oh, you're depressed." And I said, "I don't think this is just a depression."
Priya Lakhi (13:37):
But the name for this in the spiritual world is called the dark night of the soul. And it's something that we experience multiple times in our lifetime, at varying degrees. And the dark night of the soul is the initiation to a greater spiritual awakening. But I didn't know it at the time, and no one in my life had experienced it and no one could explain it to me. So as much as I thought I was just being, you know, selfish in wanting more from the world. Instead, what I was going through was a deep, dark night, that was going to require me to peel back all of the layers of my conditioning, all of the rules someone told me I had to follow, and I really had to go inside to the depths of what felt like a deep darkness and ask myself, "What? Is it working?" And then I had to be really honest with the answers, and I had to then make the changes.
Priya Lakhi (14:46):
I didn't know how to do any of that. I literally didn't know how to do any of that. I couldn't find any mentors or teachers. So I had this like real movie moment. And it sounds like so cliche, but really what it was, it was like sitting on my bathroom floor, you know, boxes of tissues all around me. I'd been crying for an hour because I didn't understand what was wrong and I heard this voice, loud as day, and it said, "Go to India." And I didn't believe in intuition then. I didn't believe in God. I didn't believe in something bigger than myself. I was a very left-brain logical lawyer. And if I couldn't see it, I didn't believe it.
Priya Lakhi (15:31):
So when I heard this voice, (laughs) like I really thought I was going crazy. Like really.
Soniya Gokhale, Host (15:38):
(laughing).
Guest, Priya Lakhi (15:39):
And- and I just said, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know." And so I just ignored it again. I did that thing. I said, "No, I'll be fine, I'll be fine. It's no big deal. Don't worry about it. I'll be fine. It's just a phase I'm going through, you know, you know, chin up, go on to your work." And I just ignored it until finally, literally, I couldn't get out of bed for three days. And this is what the universe does, by the way. It sends us nuggets, then it sends us like a softball, then it sends us a football to pay attention. And finally, if you're not listening to all those signs, the universe says, "Okay, we're gonna take the whole house down and put you in crisis. And then maybe you'll actually pay attention to yourself." And that's what happened. I literally physically could not get out of bed for three days. No one could understand what was wrong with me and I was forced to just listen to that intuitive voice that non stop said, "Go to India." And a week later, I was on a plane to India. And that's how my journey started.
Soniya Gokhale, Host (16:43):
Wow. Wow.
Priya Lakhi (16:44):
Yeah. That's how I started. And when I went to India, I- I- I also knew that the first place I had... And then by the way, I left India when I was five years old. I was born in Mumbai, but my parents immigrated to the United States. And while I had been back a few times, India didn't feel like home. So it was, it was for me like, "Okay, I'm going to this place I don't actually know that well." And I ended up at my aunt's house, my mo- my mom's sister. And my mom's sister had been through her own crisis in her life, and had ended up going through a massive spiritual awakening herself. Was now a yoga teacher, an energy healer, and a spiritual counselor. And so I knew I just had to go to her. I couldn't...
Priya Lakhi (17:32):
I can't tell you how I knew. I can't tell you why she happened to be the person. I just called her and I said, "Listen, I think I'm going to come to India, and can I come and stay with you? And I don't know what I need. And I don't know how long I'm coming for." And she lovingly opened the doors of her home, welcomed me in. And for the first couple of months of my time in India, she literally, like a baby, nursed me back to life. And it was beautiful. It was just really beautiful. And I gotta tell you, I didn't think I would be there for a couple of months. I thought I'll go to India for a few weeks, sort some stuff out and come back (laughs) to my job and everything will be okay.
Soniya Gokhale, Host (18:16):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Priya Lakhi (18:17):
The universe, for me... Everyone doesn't have to do this, but for me, had a very different plan and I ended up staying in India for over a year on my own healing journey. And it was only towards the end of that, that I recognized that my entire life was about to change both professionally and personally.
Soniya Gokhale, Host (18:34):
That is absolutely amazing. Absolutely amazing. And I love that unconditional love. The- the ability to just say, "I'm coming." And I often see it throughout India in- in ways that we don't often see it in Western culture. And when you state that India brought you to its knees, do you mean by having to surrender, surrender all your ideas and expectations of what your life entailed and sort of just move forward in this journey? And how did she guide you then?
Priya Lakhi (19:07):
Yeah.
Soniya Gokhale, Host (19:07):
Or did it just come?
Priya Lakhi (19:09):
Well, a little bit of both. And- and, you know, it brought me to my knees in multiple ways. And the first way that's most profound is you're right, it's surrender. But it was surrender to the fact that I didn't know how to help myself. I didn't know what my blind spots were. I couldn't figure out through my intellect 'cause I'm a- I'm a- I'm a smart woman. And I kept trying to force myself to understand what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong, and just fix it and like a- answers were not coming. And so it brought me to my knees in that I had to ask for help and I had to surrender to that help. I had to go to a foreign country. To me that was a foreign country at that time that I didn't know so well and I had to get accustomed to an entirely new way of life.
Priya Lakhi (20:05):
I spent months alone, because that was part of my journey. Months alone, just staring at myself, at my thoughts, at my feelings because that was the only way to do it. I couldn't read it out of a book. I couldn't just, you know, watch a few YouTube videos. For me, I really wanted to understand what my soul was trying to communicate. So it brought me to my knees because I had to give up all concepts of a familiar life, from not just the physical place I was in, but every mental construct I had. And the fact that for most of my life, I had been pretty self-sufficient and could rely on myself to pretty much figure out the answer and fix it.
Priya Lakhi (20:52):
So I went to our house and she started with just nurturing me. I had no life and me when I went to India. I was like a walking dead person. There was no joy. There was no happiness. There was no life in my eyes. I wasn't hungry, I didn't wanna eat, I didn't wanna party. I- I was literally depressed. And so slowly, she just started giving me nourishing food. She started talking to me about what was going on. She helped me put some words around these thoughts I was having and I couldn't understand what it meant.
Priya Lakhi (21:30):
And then a couple of months into my journey, she said, "I'm your aunt. I'm going to love you, but you need a teacher and a guru and a guide. And so I want to introduce you to my teacher." And she happened to be in Mumbai as well and I said, "Okay, I'm ready now. I have enou- enough life in me that I can actually now see that I have to help myself. There's nothing outside of me that's going to help me. So I'm now ready to meet this teacher." And it was that teacher that literally send me on my journey. She worked with me, she counseled me, she taught me, and then she looked at me. And I will never forget this. She says, "Do you trust me?" And I said, "I have no choice but to trust you because I can't trust myself right now."
Priya Lakhi (22:27):
And she said, "Okay, then we're gonna put you on a journey north, south, east, west India. You're gonna go meditate in [Dharamshala 00:22:36]. You're gonna go do a- a yoga teacher training in [inaudible 00:22:39]. You're gonna go to this temple in Rishikesh. You're gonna go do this, this and this, and you're going to report back to me what's happening." And that's how the journey started. Is I put my full trace and, you know, trust and faith in my aunt. And then in my aunt's teacher, who is now my spiritual teacher. And I let both of these women: strong, powerful, loving women guide me back home to myself. And that is the power of sisterhood to me.